Willie Green
» The hip hop producer takes time to discuss the low brow art of scuffing your $150 Jordans.
Photo by Candace Camuglia
Willie Green took a break from mixing a few projects on a Sunday afternoon to talk with Impose about his involvement with the Super Chron Flight Bros' Cape Verde record, his Dirty Jordans beat tape and the burden of hip hop classified as “post-Dilla”.
Listening to the Dirty Jordans tape, you’re able to sample very liberally, being that you’re still an underground producer. I take it as of right now, you don’t have many concerns regarding sample clearance?
Dirty Jordans is old, like two years old. It is what it is. It’s more under the radar, since it’s coming out on my site. I’ve had a lot of sample issues recently with the new Super Chron Flight Bros album. It’s crazy. The level people are going to to protect a sample is outrageous. You can’t print CDs. If you send an album to a CD company they will scan your disc through a computer to see what samples they can find and then they require you to provide clearance information.
This is new even in the past year. Before you’d sign a form, signing off on all the samples being cleared –whether they were or not - and the duplicator would make the copies with any kind of feedback from that going toward the artist or the label. But there’s actually a commission monitoring the duplicators to make sure they are checking on the artists now. We went to four different companies before we found one that would actually press the disc.
So they’ve got a guy with the Shazam App, checking your samples?
Pretty much. Yes. I’m not going to get into the conversation of so-and-so needs to chop the sample this much. If it works it works. On that album the entire thing was tied together on TV and movie samples so a lot of the flags came from that. It comes down to no other genre having issues with sample clearance except, particularly, indie rap.
If you’re mainstream there’s probably enough money on your project to either get the sample cleared or it won’t be on the record. Other genres don’t even deal with it. It’s specifically targeting indie rap and we don’t have any fucking money anyway. We’re printing up a thousand copies of this disc. We’re not talking about something that’s generating real money.
If you put in an order for 10 thousand or 100 thousand, then we’re talking about real money. But, a thousand copies? The artist we’re sampling off the movie or off some album, they’re not hunting for that little bit of money.
You think given a rising profile as a producer, that with this issue of sample clearance, you might adjust your style. Or will you take a stance on this being the format your music takes?
It’s hard. I would hate to say that ‘I’ve got to change my style because of X,Y, and Z’. I don’t really think about that when I’m making tracks. I’ll sit down, put on a record and I’ll find a little piece I want a sample, maybe not even with full intent to use it, but just put it aside.
If you’re trying to sell tracks to make money and eat, a lot of people are shying away from sample based tracks because of the legal issues. I have to keep that in mind. I might spend a little more time chopping something and rearrange something. My chops are pretty detailed anyway, but unfortunately it’s part of the process to think about that, rather than just flat out making music.
You’ve got the Law & Order tape with NASA. Does this mean you’re a Law & Order junkie?
Yes. A lot of Law & Order at my house. My girlfriend is an enormous SVU fan, so it’s usually more SVU. The concept from that album actually started on Twitter. Me and NASA started talking about a project after we got drunk one night. I was like “fuck you, NASA I’m gonna battle you,” which led to two producers battling on the album. We put the concept up on Twitter looking for suggestions for the album name and someone came up with Law & Order.
It was a wrap. We called my home girl Candace who does my photography, went to downtown Brooklyn to the courthouse there and that’s how it came together.
It’s easily one of the funniest album covers I’ve seen in a while.
It was actually one of the last photos we took. I had no idea it was going to get that kind of response, but that’s the first thing everybody mentions is that cover.
Recently I’ve noticed critics have coined the term “post-Dilla” and I cringe at it. I wanted to hear a producer’s perspective on the term and has anyone used it to describe your music?
I’m probably going to get some people mad at me on this one (laughs). I’ll put it like this. No one has said that about my music, not to me personally, but if they did I’d take it as a compliment. I’m a big Dilla fan. He was an incredibly talented man.
But people need to stop acting like hip hop begins and ends with Dilla. Dilla was definitely an influence on me, but I can say just as much Pete Rock was an influence or Madlib. When you limit music to just discussions about one man, it marginalizes everything else that’s going on.
It’s starting to feel detrimental.
Hip hop is the one genre intent on limiting itself. You don’t hear people calling styles of rock “Stones Rock” or “Hendrix Rock”. People don’t do that. They pay homage, but they want to be on their own and create their own shit. With hip hop if you go too far out, people want to say you’re not hip hop or put you in some obscure category. Why limit the shit so much? That’s why people don’t respect hip hop because hip hop doesn’t respect itself.
You called your tape Dirty Jordans. Are you a big fan of Jordans?
I’m actually not interestingly enough. I haven’t owned a pair of Jordans in a long time. I became a Celtics fan, but I grew up a Knicks fan. My father was a Knicks fan, my cousins were Knicks fan, so I grew up a fan. Because Jordan averaged like 45 points in the Garden… I am not a Michael Jordan fan. I respect him, I respect his game, but I am not a fan. I’m also not a fan of paying $150 for pair of sneakers. I make hip hop for a living so that shit is not possible, regardless of what people in the music videos say.
To me, it’s about contrast. The idea of Dirty Jordans – there’s a real contrasting because everybody wants to keep their Jordans clean.
Given the opportunity would you rather play one on one against Michael Jordan or hit on country club hoes with MJ?
[Laughs.] Jordan’s got a lot of money so hitting up a country club with Jordan sounds nice, but I’m far too old and close to getting married to be thinking about country club hoes. I admit I’ve not played ball in a long time, but I’d rather play him one on one. Maybe, I’d get lucky since he’s old too and he might let me win. That’s probably not the case though.
He’s far too competitive for that.
Exactly.
Since you don’t rock Jordans what shoes do you sport?
I wear a lot of shell top Adidas. I have no idea how many pairs I’ve had, especially being from Boston. Specifically that or Timberlands.
Posted on July 28, 2010
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